Dance with me
by Falsetto
Summary: Will Angel and Spike be able to keep denying their attraction to each other when they're caught in a world where you either live happily ever after or die of horrible curses?
1. Prologue

This story was supposed to be my contribution to a crossover contest, but I (obviously) didn't finish it in time for the deadline, and now the fansite is closed.

The fic is perfectly readable even if you've never seen The tenth kingdom since I am simply using that world and the characters from it as an alternate dimension for Angel and Spike to go to. Think of it kind of like Pylea. Therefore I have chosen not to put it in the crossover section since I couldn't list both Spike and Angel as main characters if I did (if this has changed don't hesitate to tell me), and I think their story is what's important here, not the fact that they end up in another fandom universe.

I hereby issue the standard slash warning: I SEE GAY PEOPLE, and will also point out that the fic will contain sex.

If you haven't seen the tenth kingdom, I strongly sugest that you do, it's an awesome series!

Now sit back and enjoy (hopefully) Dance with me.

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**Prologue**

WHAM!

The office doors swung open so violently that they bounced against the walls and closed themselves behind Spike with a teeth-rattling crash, but by then Angel was already out of his chair clutching the first thing he'd been able to get his hands on, poised to strike.

"Angel, we have a problem!" Spike began, and then found himself pressed against the same door he'd just entered through with Angel's left hand tightly locked around his throat. "And why the hell are you threatening me with a stuffed figure of Kermit?"

Angel looked at his right hand and realised that yes, it looked indeed as if he was intending to stab the man in front of him with a small version of Kermit the frog.

"It was a spur of the moment kind of thing…" he said, letting go of Spike and closely resembling an embarrassed teenager dressed up in his dad's suit.

Spike on the other hand was looking very amused whilst trotting off to spread himself over the crimson armchair he'd become partial to after Angel had made very clear that if he kept sitting in the desk chair, there would be consequences. Not that he was _scared_ of Angel or anything, he'd just made a decision that he didn't really like that chair anyway, so why not humour the man? In fact, he'd been intending to switch to the armchair all along.

"Well, I guess you could've stuffed it down my throat and let me die of suffocation… But oh yeah, I can't, 'cause I don't breathe!"

Spike thoroughly enjoyed the bothered look on Angel's face – was the man actually _blushing_?- but as the taller vampire stalked over to his desk and sat down behind it as if it was a wall he could barricade himself with against the onslaught of Spike's taunting, another thought strayed into focus.

"Wait a bleeding minute, is that _my_ Kermit?"

Angel dropped the toy as if it had bitten him.

"No!" he said with a tone of voice hinting that the mere thought frightened him, and then, as an afterthought, "_Your_ Kermit?"

It dawned upon Spike that if one wishes to maintain an air of dark, smouldering, sex riddled danger, admitting that one possesses a stuffed toy is not the best way to achieve ones goal.

"Well… I, uh… you know…" He realised that it wouldn't work, his cover was blown. "Okay, so I like the Muppet Show, alright?"

Angel would have enjoyed the moment of triumph a lot more if it hadn't been for the fact that he was starting to get real bothered by the notion of an item belonging to Spike being on his desk, _without getting removed._ Otherwise the norm was that Spike littered the office full of his trash, and Angel hunted him down and threatened to stick whatever the object was in whatever bodily orifice that seemed suitable. However, he decided to think this over at another time since there was, apparently, a problem.

"Whatever. You were saying something about a problem before this conversation turned weird?"

Spike held up his hands in the "don't look at me" gesture that is known by all, and made his grey-blue eyes wide as the gates of hell.

"Hey, don't blame _me_, you attacked me!"

Angel got out of his chair, moved by the oh so familiar impulse to beat the crap out of that good for nothing, cocky, dim-witted Englishman with his way too bleached hair and bloody bullet-proof back slick.

"And _you _barged into my office like someone had opened a hell mouth under your ass!"

"I was in a hurry!"

"Well, you scared the crap out of me!"

The moment Angel spoke the words, he regretted them. He could actually _see_ Spike's brain swerving onto a sidetrack again.

"You got _scared_?"

"Spike, I swear, if you don't tell me what the problem is _this instant_ I'll…"

"Alright, alright." Spike got out of the armchair and backed a few steps away from the intensity in Angel's now almost black eyes. "Relax, I'll tell you." He shrugged a little to adjust his eternally present black leather coat over his shoulders before continuing. "I heard a couple of people talking, and they mentioned you being invited to this party in New York. Lot's of big shots, fancy dinner, dancing…"

Angels eyes became their usual dark and not so threatening brown as his face adopted a look of sceptical confusion. "The problem being?"

"Oh, Angel, come on! I've seen you at parties! Either you just stand there brooding, which is bad, or you enjoy yourself and dance, which is worse."

"Hey, I'm not _that_ bad!" Angel lied through his teeth. He was a terrible dancer, and he knew it.

"Right, and hell is a walk in the park." Spike moved a bit closer to Angel, aware that he might be pushing it a little, but unable to stop himself. "I mean, you look like someone's dropped a pair of ferrets in your pants and they're chewing on your balls! And this, what is this…" He clapped his hands and moved them in a circle in front of himself at the same time. "Are you like, applauding them or something? 'Good job, ferrets, not only am I a total nancy-boy, I am now also a eunuch!'" Angel looked like he was going to speak, but Spike wasn't about to let that happen just yet. "All this topped of with a ridiculously happy face that makes me reach for a stake thinking that curse of yours will kick in any second." He gave the now very annoyed man in front of him a look of fake concern. "Angel, do you _like_ having a pair of ferrets chewing on your balls?"

Angel took a deep, calming breath. Nothing would be achieved if he attacked Spike (again), but he couldn't stop himself from taking a few steps towards the object of his frustration. Not many inches now separated the two vampires from physical contact. A catastrophe waiting to happen .

"So this is the problem that had you charging into my office, interrupting my work and acting like the world was coming to an end again? Are you out of your mind? And why do you even care? If I make a fool of myself it should make you all the happier!"

That was the theory. Angel suffered, Spike laughed, that's how it was supposed to work. Spike stood for a few moments without being able to think of a good thing to say.

"Well, yeah… But now you're going as a representative of the whole office here, and I can't have you embarrassing us." Spike had never been a good liar, and even though he wasn't really sure what the truth was, this was definitely not it. It was quite obvious that Angel wasn't buying it either.

"Sure, everyone will see my terrible dancing skills and decide to close down the office. Anyway, I wasn't planning on dancing so you don't have to worry about getting… embarrassed."

Spike shook his head. "No, no, no, you got to dance, man! I mean, a tall, handsome chunk of testosterone like you can't just stand there being dark and enigmatic! It might work for you when you're saving damsels in distress out on the street, but not at a party! Here, I'll show you…" He reached for one of Angel's hands, but the other man withdrew.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm gonna show you how to dance."

"No you're not."

"Yes, I am, now give me your hand."

Angel sighed and put his hand in Spike's. It was either this or throwing the guy out of his office, and as much as he would have liked that he didn't much fancy explaining the situation to his co-workers.

"Did you just call me handsome?"

Spike adjusted his grip on Angel's hand, large and warm in his, and once more tried to think of a good thing to say.

"It seems to be the general opinion."

A smile tugged at the corners of Angel's mouth, but Spike didn't see it since he'd developed a sudden interest in his own shoes.

"What, that I'm handsome or that you said I am?"

There was a moment of strangeness as Spike turned his head up to look at him. When their eyes met Angel felt oddly aware of the details of the other vampire's physique. Spike was shorter than him, and more angular in his features, and his whole attitude was more… dangerous, like some wild thing that you feel compelled to touch even though you know it will rip your hand off when you do. They were so different from each other, inside and out.

Spike on his part had intended to fire off a snide remark in response to Angel's attempt at wit, but when he met the intense and strange gaze directed down at him, he simply received it in silence for a short while, exploring the possible implications of Angel's facial expression. But it had to end. He had to end it, because anything else was unthinkable.

"Sod off! Now, we will begin with the waltz. Even a klutz like you should be able to handle it," he said, putting a hand in the small of Angel's back. "I need to demonstrate, so first you'll be the lady…" Angel's eyebrows shot up at the use of the word "lady", but Spike ignored him as he started to manoeuvre Angel around the room, counting "one, two, three…one, two, three," under his breath.

"Uh, Spike, why is your leg going so far in between mine?"

Spike heaved a sigh, and as he continued to shuffle around the room with his lumbering dance partner, he explained. "It's supposed to be like that. The waltz was considered indecent because of it."

"And you know this? I will never let you call me a nancy-boy again."

"Just because some of us pays attention during dance classes…"

"Oh for crying out loud, we were there to _hunt_, and thank you so much for reminding me of that night!"

Spike went silent. No, it wasn't a pretty memory, joining a dance class to sadistically murder all the bright eyed youths taking it. But on the other hand, there were precious few memories from that time that could count as good, if indeed there were any at all.

"Sorry. But anyway, now you try. I'll be your lady."

"You'll be my lady when hell freezes over."

"Well, I'm sorry I'm not Buffy, but at least I'm shorter than you and blond, make due with what you have."

Angel broke loose from Spike and backed away, looking hurt in a way no physical assault could ever accomplish. Spike followed him, with a genuinely apologetic look on his face. It was always like this between them, the constant teetering on the brink of being that last bit too nasty.

"Okay, that was low, I admit it. You bring out the worst in me, all the history you know. Please, just forget I said anything." He stretched out a hand, offering it to Angel. "Dance with me?"

There was a pause that lasted a lot longer than either one of the men were really comfortable with, but then Angel took Spike's hand and nodded. "Alright, let's do this. And for the record, one thing I _do_ remember from that dance class is that the man's hand isn't really supposed to be in the small of the lady's back. Try on the shoulder blade."

Spike shrugged. "So I was being a bit modern, it's not like you're going to be doing ballroom dancing, is it?"

Shaking his head and decisively putting his hand at quite a distance from the small of Spike's back, Angel began his attempt at waltzing around the room. He had to keep his eyes firmly on his feet not to trip, and after a few turns he heard Spike groan.

"Okay, you couldn't dance as Angelus either, but at least you had some amount of style. Look me in the eye, man!"

Angel did so, and almost immediately got his feet tangled with Spike's, causing them both to fall over. Spike's spine got uncomfortably bumped as he landed flat on his back with Angel on top of him, but despite the discomfort, he had to laugh.

"Well, if this is what happens when you look a lady in the eye, I have seriously underestimated you."


	2. Except for that one time

**A/N: **Hello, dear readers! Behold, another chapter! Hope I haven't kept you hangin' in the air for too long. Writing this story is AGONY (my friend can voutch for it) and I have a lot of planning to do. So, sometimes I will be slow..

I would like to apologize for the probable anachronisms in the dialogue. I am not at all familiar with the language of the 1890's, but if someone who reads this happens to be you are very welcome to point me in the direction of my mistakes.

Remember that sexual content I was talking about? Well, this chapter contains some of it, so consider yourselves warned.

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**Except for that one time…**

London, 1892

Angelus lay naked on the king sized bed's splendidly soft silk sheets in the hotel's finest suite, a half-empty bottle of whisky in his right hand. It didn't taste much to him, but it sure felt nice being a little drunk. They had checked in a little over an hour ago and Darla, Spike and Dru had taken off to enjoy the city. He hadn't felt like it and had chosen to remain behind.

Outside, London was still buzzing in the hot summer night like a big, lazy bumblebee. A breeze carried the sounds from the street below up to him through the wide open doors that led to the balcony, and he welcomed its sweet caress on his skin. Though possessing no actual body temperature, he could still feel the heat and take pleasure in the contrasting effect of the cooler wind sweeping over his body.

Then a disturbance made his body tense, his eyes switching from drowsy to alert in an instant. To his ears it sounded like someone, or something, was trying to scale the wall of the hotel, and quite inexpertly at that.

He remained in his horizontal state, trusting in his strength and speed to make him ready for combat quickly enough if the nuisance turned out to be an actual enemy. Not an altogether wise decision, perhaps, but humility had never been a strong point with him.

He waited in silence, listening to the scuttling noises with growing anticipation until the sound of slipping and a slurry "bugger" flushed all the tension out of his system so quickly it left him limp and, for a few moments, unable to move even a finger.

He chuckled deep down in his chest as he watched Spike struggle to crawl over the wrought iron rail that lined the spacious balcony, amused by what a fine mess the other vampire looked.

The front of Spike's shirt was covered in blood , and his face was smeared with it too. The blond hair had been caked together by even more of the stuff, and his hands were far from free of it. To top it all off, he seemed about as close to being sober as he was to being human.

"William the Bloody indeed. You look like you've run into a slayer! Where are the girls?"

Spike gave him a haughty look and burped loudly before responding.

"I told you not to call me that anymore!"

Angelus made a dismissive gesture with the hand holding the bottle, and Spike's eyes swivelled right to it and he started staggering towards it.

"Hey, can I have some of that?"

Angelus got out of bed and hurried up to the other vampire, stopping him with a hand against his chest, holding the whisky bottle to high for Spike to be able to reach it.

"I asked you a question, Willie."

They locked gazes. For a few moments it seemed like they would come to blows, it never took much for that to happen, but then Spike looked away.

"They're out making their own entertainment. Dunno where, but I suspect they'll be gone for quite some time."

Angelus nodded and handed the bottle to Spike, who gobbled down a substantial portion of its contents in one draught. Then he gave it back to its original owner and headed towards the bed. Angelus once more stopped him, this time by grabbing his arm by the elbow.

"Oh, no you don't, you'll get blood all over the sheets. Take a bath and then soak those clothes in some cold water. We were going to be discreet this time, remember? And on that subject, nice entrance, real inconspicuous."

Spike grinned happily. "Well, I couldn't exactly swan in through the front door looking like this, now could I?"

"Because scaling the front _wall_ is so much more subtle?"

Spike shrugged, "They just thought I was a loony, I even heard a couple of fellas betting on whether I'd fall down or not." He pulled his arm loose from Angelus' grip and went for one of the open doors leading to the other rooms. "Now if you'll excuse me, I believe there's a bath waiting for me." Angelus rolled his eyes.

"William." No reaction from the blond man. "Will!" Still no response. "Oh, alright then… Spike!"

"Yes?" Spike answered with an even voice, but when he turned around his smile was triumphant.

"The bathroom's that way", Angelus said with a wicked smirk, pointing in the opposite direction to the one Spike had been heading, and in doing so noticed that he'd gotten blood on his hand touching Spike. He started to lick it off whilst going back to the bed, contemplating what tasted better, blood, or payback?

The look on Spike's face made him inclined to say payback.

The blond vampire, hurt pride and all, made his way to the bathroom a couple of rooms away, his drunken progress clearly audible to an amused Angelus.

"Oi, why's there no water in this?"

Apparently, knowledge of the workings of indoor plumbing had slipped out of Spike's mind as the alcohol slipped in.

"You turn the taps, moron!"

"I knew that…"

Then came the sound of water running, followed by a very loud splash. There could be no doubt that Spike had indeed gotten into the tub. Moments afterwards the singing began.

"The summertime has come, and the trees are sweetly blooming, and the wild mountain thyme grows around the blooming heather. Will you go, lassie, go…"

Angelus propped up a couple of pillows against the bed's headboard, leaned back against them, took another swig from the still not empty whisky bottle, closed his eyes and listened.

Five songs later Spike emerged, drying himself off with a towel that he carelessly tossed on the Persian carpet that covered a large part of the floor before flinging himself on the bed next to Angelus, who groaned irritably as he got shaken out of his reverie by the wobbling of the mattress.

When the Englishman reached for the bottle once more, Angelus brought it to his mouth and quickly drank what was left before turning to his companion with a big smile.

"You've had enough for tonight, I think."

"That's just mean, man…"

Angelus nodded in agreement, but said nothing.

A strangely detached amount of time passed, the two vampires laying on the bed silently looking out in empty space. Hours could have floated by, or seconds. It was one of those times when time itself seems to become unhinged.

Then, out of the blue…

"You ever fucked a man, Spike?"

Angelus was pretty sure he already knew the answer to that question. He had tried and tried to subtly manoeuvre Spike into sleeping with him many times over the years but it had never amounted to anything. He hadn't been refused, the younger vampire just didn't seem to get it. It was as if the whole concept simply couldn't fit below that charming, blond tuft of hair, and though Angelus found the other man very attractive it had never felt that important to pursue the issue. He had Darla, and if the itch got too bad there was no shortage of men to find that would be more than willing to scratch it.

"Say what?"

Angelus sat up straighter, turning towards Spike to look him in the eyes. Tonight was different. He was bored, and the self-imposed rule of discretion made most of his ideas for recreation impossible to accomplish for the moment. He would seduce Spike, and since subtlety seemed utterly wasted on the man, he would be very blunt about it.

"I asked you if you've ever fucked a man."

Spike also sat up. "Why would I want to fuck a man?"

"Oh, I don't know… For fun?"

The blond vampire edged just about an inch away from his grand-sire. "How would you know?"

Angelus replied with a meaningful glance. The man beside him froze, and then actually seemed to fly out of the bed, dragging the sheet with him so forcibly that Angelus fell over the side when it was yanked away from under him.

"Spike, for fuck's sake, what was that for?" He said getting up from the pretty undignified position he had landed in.

"You..." Spike was holding the sheet tightly around his waist with one hand, and jabbing a furious index-finger at him with the other, "You've... You're a..."

"Yes, and you are a soulless demon. This should not be bothering you."

Spike's fear was a far more powerful aphrodisiac than any amount of willing submission could ever have been. Angelus felt it coursing through him like the prickling of electric shocks. It was getting very apparent how much he was enjoying this.

Spike was panicking. He didn't care about whether or not this _should_ be bothering him, it did bother him, and he was naked in a hotel suite with an equally naked Angelus that obviously had... and that from the looks of it probably wanted to...

He bolted for the balcony, but the sheet twisted itself around his legs making him fall flat on his face. Angelus was on the floor with him before he could untangle himself and all of a sudden there was all this skin against his, and big hands sweeping over his back and...

"Get off me, bloody faggot!"

He pushed Angelus away with considerable force, making the older vampire slide across the floor - his skin reddening when it scraped against the fibres of the carpet - and crash into the wall with a quite noticeable bang. Spike kicked desperately to get the sheet off and then once more headed for the balcony doors.

He reached them, but then the hands were back, closing around his hips and flinging him through the air. He landed on the bed, and he heard the sound of something breaking. He was grateful that it seemed to be the piece of furniture and not himself. He could Angelus laughing at him from where he stood, blocking the balcony doors and cutting of the primary escape route.

"I don't want this!" Spike yelled, bouncing back out of the bed and running in a direction he hoped would take him to the front door, flailing his arms in a quite ridiculous and very unproductive way. "Go fuck someone else! Fuck yourself ! Just _don't fuck me!_"

Fear, Angelus decided, was exiting. Hysteria, however, was not. This had to end before Spike did something irreparably stupid.

He caught up with the blond man in the suite's other bedroom, and momentarily wondered why the younger vampire had gone there, since it was a dead end. Hysteria didn't exactly do wonders for one's sense of directions, that much was clear.

Spike realised that he'd backed himself into a corner, but just as he lunged to jump through the window, big, muscular arms locked themselves over his chest and he was pinned against Angelus body. His skin crawled, but he could at least feel a tiny sliver of relief over the fact that the cock he could feel pressed against his butt-crack was no longer erect.

"Spike, when I've finished talking I'm going to let go of you, and I would appreciate it if you didn't do anything rash like running away again or jumping out of that window, because I would really hate to have to knock you out."

Even though Angelus kept his voice calm and even, Spike started to struggle desperately again as soon as he mentioned knocking the guy out.

"You know, you're gonna have to bleeding _kill_ me before I let you stick that sodding dick up my arse!"

Ah, Spike thought he would get knocked out and raped. Angelus sighed.

"Does it feel like my dick could get stuck up anything right now? I'm not going to do anything to you, Spike. I'll let you go to prove it."

And Spike was free. He stood still, tense and trembling but not running away. He knew that Angelus had been serious about knocking him out, and he trusted the man about as far as he could throw him. That was actually quite a distance, but not nearly far enough to make him believe that his grand-sire wouldn't take advantage of him while he was unconscious.

"Could you please calm down now?"

"Calm down?" The shriek came out a lot more high-pitched than Spike had intended, but he seemed to have lost some control of his vocal cords and he decided not to think about it as he swivelled around to fixate a glare of distilled rage on Angelus. "Calm down? Out of the blue you ask me if I've ever fucked a man, and then you start waving a hard on in my face before jumping me on the floor! And when I try to get away you grab my butt and toss me on the bed!"

"Uh, I never grabbed your butt..."

"Yes you did!"

"I grabbed your _hips_, Spike."

"It's the same bloody thing!"

_This is getting ridiculous_, Angelus thought and then made the moronic decision to walk over to Spike to demonstrate the difference between hips and buttocks.

"_This_ is grabbing your butt," he said, forcefully gathering up Spike's rather nice and firm butt cheeks in his hands. _I shouldn't have done that_, he then thought as Spike's face contorted with bloodlust and warped into his game-face. But the deed was done and it was now Angelus' turn to get tossed like a ragdoll, though his landing was less fortunate than Spike's had been. He flew over the bed, missing it by an inch and instead landed on the floor, not really enjoying the sense of déjà vu. Then Spike was upon him, snarling like an animal and going for his throat.

"Oh, no you don't," Angelus said with a very definitive tone and briskly flopped Spike over so that he could pin him down. "Get a grip, Spike! You're blowing this way out of proportion and I've just about had it with you. Snap out of it!"

The words felt like a glass of cold water tossed in Spike's face, and he dropped the game-face instantaneously. Angelus let him go with a tired sigh and he scrambled away from the older vampire to lean his back against the bed.

To describe the silence that fell between them as awkward would have been like saying Angelus was kinda evil.

Spike was feeling stupid. Sure, he'd been within his rights to be upset about Angelus feeling him up on the floor, but his original reaction to his grand-sire's pretty harmless question had been... human.

"Uhm... so what's it like then?"

"Huh?"

"Fucking a man, what's it like?"

"_Huh?_"

"Well, you kinda had a point before. I mean, worrying about the whole faggot-business is a human thing, why should I care?"

Angelus closed his eyes. _This is so not happening. _"Spike, what the fuck?"

"I'm not saying I forgive you for being all over me on the floor like that, but I guess I'm trying to... apologise or something for going all hysterical on you just 'cause you like bumming men."

There was a pause. "Spike, I think I'm going to try to kiss you now."

Another pause. "Might as well."

It was a nice kiss, as first kisses go. The usual "Where does my tongue go?" occurred, but they managed to avoid banging their teeth together and no inappropriate amount of saliva was slobbered around.

OK, maybe it was a little bit better than nice, and maybe Spike clasped his hands around Angelus' neck to keep him from pulling away. Maybe it felt a lot better than Spike could have ever believed to feel another man's hands tracing the lines of his shoulder blades.

Yeah, maybe.

They stood up, without breaking the kiss, and then fell down on the bed. Angelus wanted to explore every inch of Spike with his lips and tongue, but the other man's mouth tasted better than anything, better than blood.

For what seemed like forever they just kissed and kissed and kissed, no need for air forcing them to stop. They rolled around on the bed, one on top and then the other, rubbing their bodies against each other making muffled noises into each others' mouths as their cocks ground together and they were blinded with lightning sharp stabs of pleasure.

Then, Angelus made a final roll, pinning Spike down and lifting his lips from their newfound sanctuary. He wanted to show Spike more, so he let his lips wander down the ivory neck, stopping once and again to bite, suck or both. He discovered that there was a beauty to be found in the line of a collarbone that he had never appreciated quite this much, and when he gently closed his teeth around a nipple, the sigh that escaped Spike shook him in his very foundations.

He devoted quite some time to those nipples. Teasing them, pinching them, licking them, before continuing on his odyssey of discovering what he could do to this man.

When he reached the other man's groin, Angelus looked up at Spike's face and smiled. The blond man had his eyes closed, and seemed oblivious to anything that wasn't connected to what was happening to him. It was glorious.

He could have waited longer, teased more, but he didn't want to. He covered his teeth with his lips and took in as much of that smooth, hard cock as he could, almost chocking as Spike bucked his hips against him. In his head he went through all the things that he would like to do, that he wanted Spike to know about. But he could feel that Spike was close to climaxing, and so was he, and there would be other times.

He let Spike's cock slide out of his mouth and got out of bed, not bothering to give any explanation. He hurried to where they had left their yet to be unpacked bags and rummaged around in one of them, producing a glass jar with a wax seal. Then he made his way back to the bed.

With a suggestive smile he broke the seal, unleashing a fresh, minty sort of smell into the room.

"What's that?" Spike asked, his voice noticeably strained.

"Just something to make things a little easier. This Chinese guy in Paris makes it, I'll take you there some time."

The jar contained a faintly green, creamy substance and Angelus scooped some up before putting the container on the floor beside the bed. After carefully, almost gently lubricating his lover's ass, taking his time to make sure that the other man was relaxed before taking Spike's legs and putting them over his shoulders. The he slowly, slowly edged his way in.

Spike felt a brief moment of self-consciousness (How ridiculous mustn't I look now?) when his legs went up on Angelus' shoulders, and a little pain when the other man's cock slid into him, but then it was all good, so good, unbelievably good. And all the time, Angelus looked at him, into him. It was like...

They screamed. Angelus threw his head back and howled at the moon like a werewolf and Spike arched his back as he splattered cum all over himself and his lover, feeling the added slipperiness inside as the other vampire's sperm mixed with the... whatever it was that Angelus had creamed him up with.

They fell asleep together, and when Darla and Dru came home just moments before the sun rose they found the two men lying entwined on the bed. Dru sneaked up to them and brushed a strand of hair away from Spike's face. He didn't stir.

"Look Grandmother, Daddy's played with my pet."

The following night Spike woke up before Angelus, carefully edging away not to wake him. He went to the bags - still not unpacked - rummaged around for some clothes and snuck out to hunt. He wanted to be alone, there was so much to think about.

When Angelus came back to the world of the conscious, the sheets were already cold where Spike had slept. Had it not been for the telltale stains all over the place, one might have thought it was all just a very strange dream.

"Daddy, I slept in a broken bed."

Drusilla came skipping into the room, stark naked with her ebony curls bobbing around her.

"Yes, sorry about that..." Angelus rubbed his eyes, not really in the mood for dealing with the winding paths inside the mind of his masterpiece of evil.

"Toys always break," she stated matter of factly and crawled into bed beside him. Idly she started drawing patterns on his chest with her fingertips.

"They do, huh..." Angelus muttered. He knew what she was after, but he didn't feel up to it. He was still pretty spent from his night with Spike, and it would probably hurt the other man more than ever to find Angelus cavorting with Dru in his usual manner after what they had done.

There he halted himself, and a slow, sly grin spread over his face. What a delicious idea. How perfectly evil.

He made a move to reach for Dru, but stopped, caught in a moment of hesitation. There had been an instant, just before he came, when he saw the look on Spike's face just before _he_ came, and in that instant something had given away inside him, something he usually only felt with Darla. He had lost himself completely then, hurtled himself over the edge and into complete blankness. And then afterwards, lying with the other man's body close...

But all that was nothing, at least compared to the sheer beauty and sophistication of the pain he now had the power to inflict, because he had seen that give in Spike's face too.

"Well, Dru, I know a game you don't need toys to play."

"But it's more fun with toys, Daddy."

"Not today, my sweet."

Spike caught them, just as Angelus wanted. He knew that Angelus wanted it because the man looked him right in the eyes as he was fucking Drusilla. He looked at him and smiled, and so did she, standing on all fours with her game-face on. She was being a beast, her favourite game. It tore him apart seeing them, not because Drusilla was abandoning him to "play" with her Daddy again - that pain was never more than a dull ache these days – but because Angelus would do this to him. That he would become just another plaything to use in the creation of his grand-sire's "art". That Angelus would once more diminish him and say, "I would never do this to a true companion. I would never do this to Darla."

He turned around and walked away.

Angelus watched him go.

_No, there will never be other times._

L.A 2004

Angel was pacing back and forth in his bedroom. Surely, of all the bad things he'd done this was not the worst by a long shot, so why was he faithfully awarded a sleepless night a year over it?

Yes, he had been evil, but so had Spike! It was not like it was a question of slaughtering the innocent!

He slumped down on the bed, burying his face in a pillow. He knew why he kept losing sleep over that particular offence. It was because Spike was always out there, somewhere, remembering what had happened just as clearly as Angel himself. And Spike would keep remembering forever.

That had been what had made the whole idea so appealing to Angelus. He loved inflicting pain that would just never go away. Dru was testament to that.

Angel growled, got out of bed and resumed his pacing.

Spike wasn't pacing. He was just sitting, staring blankly at nothing.

He didn't need special occasions to spend a night cursing Angel, but usually he tried to make _this_ night something special. When he was still evil he would device some especially bloody way to kill off as many people as he could get away with, or something along that line of thinking, but when he got his soul back that just wasn't an option anymore.

He'd tried getting drunk, but that hadn't worked, so he had started to think instead, and the more he thought about it, the more he came to realise that it was rather stupid to keep blaming Angel for something Angelus had done to him.

OK, so he didn't _like_ Angel, big deal, he disliked loads of people. On the other hand, loads of people weren't constant reminders of just how much of a bastard he once was.

That was just it. Him and Angel were so caught up in seeing the vampires they once were that they couldn't see the men they had become. What Angel had become was a big ponce with terrible hair and lousy taste in music. Not someone Spike would want to hang out with, but definitely not someone he'd hate either. Just a guy.

Yes, tomorrow he would go to the office and - if an opportunity presented itself - he would try to do something to lessen the tension between them. Like a peace offering.

It was time to put these old things to rest.


	3. Reasons

**A/N: **The two separate "storylines" in this chapter don't follow the exact same timeline. Just pointing that out to avoid confusion. Some conversations and quotes lifted from the Angel episodes "I will remember you," "Harm's way" and "Soul purpose." Spot the quotes, get a cookie!

* * *

**Chapter two**

**Reasons**

In retrospect - Spike thought whilst crashing through Angel's office doors - trying to teach Angel how to dance might not have been the best peace offering imaginable. But even as he thought it, he knew that wasn't why Angel was throwing him out.

"Now you get out, and stay out!"

Angel stood in the now very empty doorway with his game-face on, switching back to normal as he turned towards his personal assistant. "And Harmony, get someone over here to fix the doors."

"Sure Bossy!" she replied, a sunny smile on her face. Like all other employees she had learned the hard way that it was a very, very bad idea to acknowledge it in any way whenever Angel was behaving strangely. However, as soon as her employer disappeared from sight she hurried over to Spike, who'd gotten up only seconds after hitting the floor .

"Blondie-Bear, are you alright?"

"Of course I'm alright. Like that bloody pansy could ever really hurt me." Spike turned around and started walking towards stairs, leaving Harmony behind without a word. She sighed and got to arranging for someone to come and replace the busted doors. She really wasn't getting enough appreciation for all her hard work.

* * *

The Science Department was buzzing like a beehive, but in Fred's office a peculiar sort of stillness managed to imbue everything in it. Through large windows one could oversee everything that was going on, but no sounds penetrated the thick glass.

Fred was sitting bent over a microscope, completely immersed in whatever it was she was studying in it.

"Hey there, science girl."

"Hello Spike. Don't…" Spike hoisted himself up to sit on the edge of the table, causing it to shake violently. "… sit on the table."

"Oops, sorry."

"Oh, it's nothing. Just a very rare sample of ectoplasm from an incredibly illusive form of ghost that we're trying to pinpoint exactly how they - being dead and all - manage to reproduce. A sample that mustn't be shaken too hard lest the cellular structure fall apart completely, because then I'd have to redo the entire experiment. Really, nothing at all."

"Bloody hell! I'm an idiot."

Fred took a look in the microscope. "It's fine. But can you get of the table… carefully?"

Spike nodded and lowered himself back down to the floor with a much larger amount of grace than he'd gotten on it.

"So, why are you here?" Fred gestured towards the other available chairs in the room. "Sit down if you like."

Spike shook his head. "I'm not staying, I just came down here because you're the only one I really… really want to say goodbye too."

Fred got out of her chair hurriedly. "Goodbye?"

Spike nodded, a small smile on his lips. He had to admit that it felt kind of nice to have someone caring about his departure.

"Yeah, the whole thing with that cup was sort of a wakeup call, you know? With it being a big hoax and all, I'm thinking the Shansu thing is just another load of bull. And even if it isn't, I don't care. If Angel wants that heroic destiny so badly, he's welcome to it. I've got better things to do than to sit around waiting for the four bloody horsemen."

Fred cocked her head. "Like what?"

"Well, I _do_ have someone waiting for me."

After a momentary silence, Fred seemed to understand what he was talking about. "Ah, you mean Buffy."

"Bingo, luv. So I'll be shoving off to Europe now. I just wanted you to know… uh… I mean, all that work you put in trying to, you know, cure me of the ghosties…"

Fred smiled shyly, evading his eyes. "I didn't do anything."

"Oh, you did. You… you believed in m… I mean, you tried. I won't forget that."

"You're welcome."

And that was that. All that could be said had been. Had Spike and Fred been lovers, they would have kissed. If they'd known each other long enough to be true friends, they would have hugged. As it was, there was merely a silence where these things would have occurred. A silence that no words in the world could fill, and therefore Spike departed without saying anything else, and Fred sat down by her microscope again. If her eyes seemed a little misty, Spike had been the only one to see it, and he wouldn't tell anyone.

* * *

Upstairs, Lorne spotted the lack of doors to Angels office.

"My, oh my Harmonica, what happened here?"

Harmony shrugged. "Don't know. He threw Spike through the doors, and that's all I can tell you. I wouldn't recommend trying to find out."

Lorne nodded. "That's fine advice, Sunbeam, but I think I'll have to risk it."

"It's your funeral."

Lorne nodded again and then proceeded to walk through the empty doorway. Inside he found Angel, sitting by his desk and staring out the windows like he was trying to burn a hole through them with his eyes.

"Angelcakes, what in the world happened here?"

"Spike's going away."

"And that's why you threw him through the doors?"

"No, he's going to be with Buffy."

"Aha, and _that's_ why you threw him through the doors!" There was a pause. "I don't get it…. Honey, I thought you'd gotten over her, seeing as you had that mondo huge crush going on our sweet little Cordy before..."

"There is no _getting over_ Buffy," Angel said, getting out of his chair. "Whatever I do, whoever I love she will always be… Buffy." He started pacing back and forth in front of the windows. "And now Spike, of all people, will always be…"

"The one who gets to be with her."

Angel stopped. "Yeah."

Lorne went to an armchair, ironically enough the very same armchair Spike had been sitting in earlier, and made himself comfortable. "You really have to work on the whole letting go thing, I hope you know that."

"I know, and I thought I had!" Angel resumed his pacing. "Let go, I mean. Me and Cordy we… we could've had something. I know we could, and it wouldn't have been tainted. But Spike… He turns me into someone I don't want to be! If you'd heard some of the things I said to him when we were fighting over the cup…"

"Well, what _did_ you say then?"

Angel went over to his desk and once more slumped down into the chair behind it, this time leaning his head in his hands. "I said that Buffy never really loved him, because he wasn't me."

"Sweet margarita, that _is_ harsh!"

"You know, him leaving is really the best thing that could happen. I… I can't be around him! I don't know how he does it, but he manages to reduce me to a five-year-old every damn time I talk to him! And he gets these ridiculous ideas…" Angel wasn't aware of it, but when he leaned back into the chair and looked at Lorne, a small smile was curving the corners of his mouth upwards. "He came barging in here like something terrible had happened, and then told me he was going to teach me to dance."

Lorne was baffled. "Excuse me, I must have wax in my ears or something because I'm sure I didn't just hear you say Spike wanted to teach you how to _dance_."

Angel couldn't help it, he laughed. "Yes, he did. And I even agreed to it, for some reason. He tried to teach me the waltz, and then we fell over and I landed on top of him." Lorne's eyebrows almost flew off his face from the sheer velocity they gained as they travelled upwards on his brow, but Angel didn't notice, he was mostly talking to himself. At that point, Lorne could probably have gotten up and left without his employer noticing. "And he made some remark about having underestimated me if that's what happened every time I looked a lady in the eye." Angel's smile faded away. "And then we were off as usual, throwing jibes at each other. And as usual it turned into an argument, and _that's_ when he told me he was leaving, and that the whole dancing thing was just an attempt to end things on a good note. The weird thing, well, one of them, is that he could've just said that from the beginning, but he tried to feed me some story about how I was a representative of the office and couldn't embarrass them by making a fool of myself at parties. 'Embarrass us' he said, like he's ever considered himself a part of this place."

Lorne shook his head with a smile, "But what should he have said? 'Hey, I'm taking off to be with the love of your life, just thought we'd do some male bonding first.' Maybe he just didn't really know why he was doing it himself."

* * *

Spike was zooming along in Angel's viper, the satisfaction of stealing his grand-sire's favourite car long gone. The sun was setting, soon it would be safe leaving the vehicle but for the moment he was going in circles, grinding his argument with Angel over and over again in his head.

The night before, everything had seemed so clear. Angel and him were being silly, it was time to grow up and stop behaving like kids in kindergarten. But when he stormed into Angel's office, all those clear-cut intentions melted away like ice cream in the sun. It was like the man's presence just brought up everything in him that was low, stupid and immature.

And when he was asked for a reason for what he was doing, he'd been stumped. All the things he'd been saying to himself, all the grown up reasoning he'd been doing… it just didn't seem like enough anymore.

He still wanted things to get better between him an Angel, but suddenly he couldn't for the…uh… death of him figure out why. So he'd said something stupid and blundered on, and then there'd been that moment, when Angel took his hand and looked at him…

He veered sharply, breaking half a dozen traffic rules as he did so, and set a steady course for the harbour. It really didn't matter why he'd wanted to be nice to Angel. He was going to Europe, so hopefully he wouldn't have to lay eyes on the other man ever again. Even if he did, it would be standing by Buffy's side, and everything was always alright when he was with her.

* * *

"You know what, I don't care why he did it. He's gone now, and that's the end of it." Angel got out of his chair. "Could you… tell Harmony to reschedule the rest of my meetings toady, and make sure no one tries to contact me? I think I need to… " He stopped himself. "Just do it, okay?"

"Sure, whatever you say, big guy." Lorne left the office, and Angel went to the elevator that would take him to his apartment.

* * *

Rome, one way. The ticket was in his hand, and in a couple of hours the boat would depart. Now all he had to do was wait.

Waiting, he'd never been good at it, and he could feel the itch start all over his body. He was like a shark. Sleek and fast, the perfect hunter, but if he was still for too long he died.

He smiled at his own comparison, he quite liked it. Yeah, a shark.

He wondered how Buffy thought of him. If she thought of him.

She'd said she loved him. He'd answered that she didn't but… deep down inside him the hope had flared that she truly did. That the kiss he'd seen her share with Angel, the conversation he'd overheard… that it didn't mean anything. Not really.

Spike was sitting a waiting hall. His tightwad of a grand-sire hadn't given him enough money to pay for having the car transported with him to Italy, so it would stand abandoned on the parking lot he'd left it on until someone stole it or Angel managed to recover it.

On the other hand, he'd been lucky to get any money at all. Angel had been livid when they parted ways for what would hopefully be the last time, and yet he'd actually taken the time to take a small stack of bills out of his desk and press it into Spike's hand before tossing him through the doors like he was a piece of furniture or something. Spike shook his head. If he lived to be a million years old he'd never understand the man.

"Boy troubles, eh?"

"What?" Spike turned around to find that he'd been joined on the bench he occupied by what could only be described as a bum. It was a man in his fifties, rather plump and obviously inebriated. Foul breath spewed from a mouth that had seen a lot more teeth than currently inhabited it, and the round chin was covered in greyish stubble. The brown coat covering his squat frame smelled funky, and the seedy jeans and plaid Manchester shirt didn't help the general impression one bit, and the floppy hat topping things off might once have been a charming, Indiana Jones-like thing, but those day's were long gone.

"Well, you're a poofter, right?"

"How do you kn… I mean, no!" Spike edged away from the man, but was suddenly struck by a strange and intense need to put to rest the notion of him being gay. "I'm actually going to see my girlfriend."

The man raised an eyebrow at him and took a large gulp from a bottle whose contents was anyone's guess. "If you say so… Why the glum face then?"

Spike almost got up and left, but there was a gleam in the bum's eyes, like the man knew something. Like he had answers.

"Well, she thinks I'm dead."

"Ah, had a girl like that meself, once. I was glad of it though, right pain in the behind she was."

Spike cocked his head and squinted suspiciously at the man, suddenly realising what he should have known straight away.

"You're not human at all, are you?"

"_Excuse me, _I'm a whole quarter human I'll have you know!"

"Oh… uh, sorry?"

"Don't mention it, son." The bum stuck out a dirty hand. "The name's Bharwthlogroinhya, but most people just call me Barry."

Spike looked at Barry's hand with doubt, but then shook it. If he was indeed sitting next to a demon, and a drunken one at that, he didn't really have time to find out if he could kill it should he manage to offend it. He had a boat to catch.

"Nice to meet you, Barry. I'm… William." Spike wasn't too popular in some demon circuits, and as he didn't know what he was dealing with it was probably a bad idea to throw his name around too frivolously.

Barry nodded a little, as if Spike had said something very profound, and took another sip from his bottle. "So, William, this dame of yours. You worried she won't be happy to see you?"

Spike sighed. "Nah, I know she will be, it's just that… Well, I said 'girlfriend', but I'm not entirely sure what we had there just before the end." It felt good to have said it out loud.

Barry nodded again, looking in a strange way like one might imagine the wise old wizards in fairytales. If the wise old wizards one imagined was drunk, unclean and smelly, that is. "And the end, what was it like?"

Spike smiled, somewhat smugly. "Saved the world. Went out in a blaze of glory like a real hero." _Not like that sissy Angel who just turned tail and ran. _Never mind that Buffy had practically ordered him to leave.

"That's one hell of an exit. Hard to top."

_Impossible, more like._ "Yeah…"

Then it hit him. Buffy (hopefully) thought of him as a hero, a champion who sacrificed himself to save the world. If he went to Europe, he'd still be that, but he'd also be a man who loved her, and who wanted her to love him back. And most definitively not in a platonic way. What if she didn't want that?

The truth was that he was scared of finding out.

* * *

Angel was crying.

It had started the moment he stepped through the elevator doors, and now he couldn't stop. The tears pulsed from his eyes with a fierce rhythm, making his eyes pound like little hearts in their sockets.

The weight of all that had been taken from him had suddenly crashed down on him like a block of lead the size of Kansas, and had he needed it he wouldn't have been able to breathe. As it was he merely felt a tightness around lungs that hadn't been in use for centuries, and something very much like a clenched fist seemed to have settled down in the pit of his stomach.

He exited the elevator and blundered gracelessly into his apartment, shaking with sobs so powerful they made it hard for him to stay on his feet.

Tumbling into bed he curled up around himself, like he was trying to disappear, and gave himself over to memory.

He remembered his son. In fact, he was the only one who did. He was the only one who knew that he'd been the father of a beautiful baby boy, and he was the only one to remember the fierce love he felt for his son, a love that was ruthless in it's intensity. He would do anything for Connor, even change reality. Even change the memories of his friends.

He remembered how much he'd hated Wesley for taking his child, and now he hated again. He hated so much that he nearly got out of bed to run down back to the office, seek his friend out and kill him with his bare hands.

He remembered Cordelia. How she'd been full of life, how she'd been his guiding light and in some ways hope of salvation. With her, he'd truly understood that it was possible for him to find love again, and yet he'd never been given the chance to truly find it. She'd been taken, and now she was lying in a hospital bed like a vegetable, with that beautiful face he missed every single day horribly void of expression.

He remembered Buffy. With terrible clarity he recalled the love he'd felt for her. It shot through him like spears of light, burning him to cinders in their passing.

He remembered the day he'd swallowed, the one day he'd gotten to spend with Buffy as a human. He'd asked to be turned back to what he was, for Buffy's sake, and for the sake of all the people that needed her. That needed them both. The price he'd paid was to be the only one to remember that day. To all others it had never happened.

It had been worth it. Just about, but it had been worth it.

Now he wasn't so sure.

_I felt your heart beat…_

_I'll never forget. I'll never forget. I'll never forget. I'll never forget._

* * *

"Bugger."

Spike rose from the bench and turned to Barry. "It was nice talking to you, but I got to go now."

"No boat, eh?" Barry said knowingly.

"No, no boat."

"So what are you going to do?"

"Get drunk."

* * *

Hours had passed, and Angel's tears had long since dried out, but he couldn't get himself to move from the bed. That great big lump of lead was still pinning him down, paralysing him.

Spike could have the life that Angel had wanted with every fibre of his being. Spike could get to fight beside Buffy, be her best friend, her lover, her life. If she allowed it.

He didn't dare hope she wouldn't.

The jarring sound of a telephone ringing cut through the dark thoughts like a knife, and as Angel fumbled around for the one standing on his bedside table he felt a tiny amount of relief somewhere in the back of his mind.

"Angel."

"Thank god you answered, Muffin!"

"Lorne, I distinctly remember saying 'let no one contact me.' What part of that statement made you think you weren't included in 'no one'?"

"The part where your personal assistant whacked me on the head and tossed me in a cleaning cabinet."

"Harmony did _what_?"

"It's a long story. We've all congregated in your office, care to join us?"

"I'll be right there."

Angel got out of bed, smoothed out his clothes and went towards the elevator with determined steps. A look out the windows revealed that the sun had set. He smiled a little, it almost felt like when he'd still run Angel Investigations from the Hyperion. Time to get back to work.

* * *

After some searching around, Spike had found a suitably seedy strip club and was enjoying his third beer for the night. He really didn't care much for places like this, but here he was pretty confident he wouldn't bump in to someone from Wolfram and bloody Hart. The good guys had too much conscience, and the evil people had, as a rule, more exclusive taste.

He didn't even bother with looking at the girl undulating on the cheap plastic floor of the stage. He knew what he'd see. Naked flesh and raw humiliation.

When he was still evil he used to love it, especially enjoying making fun of the incredibly stupid blokes who actually seemed to believe that the girls were enjoying themselves. He'd thought it was a real laugh.

He swigged the last of his beer, and the second the final drop slid down his throat, someone put another drink in front of him. He looked at his benefactor and found a rather attractive young man looking at him with a sly glint in his eye.

_Do I really look that gay?_

"Uh, yeah, thanks… but not really my type, Mary, so be a good lad an push off."

The man didn't stir, and Spike was getting annoyed. "What are you gawking at?"

Finally, a response. "A guy like you, whiling away his time in some cheesy downtown strip dive. Look like somebody who's feeling kinda lost."

_Jesus, he's coming on to me!_

"Is that right? Funny, thought I knew exactly where I was. Place called the Peppermint Stick. Prima ballerina up there's Sunshine. Though I'm fairly certain that's not her real name."

Spike tried to look intimidating, but the man in front of him just smiled. "You know... we really should talk."

Spike got up to leave the club, feeling that if he didn't, he'd kill this annoying little fairy and then he'd feel bad about it afterwards. Damn soul. Over his shoulder he said, "You know? Really not. I don't know what you're selling, but best you peddle your wares someplace else if you know what's good for you."

Walking away he heard the man call, and what he said made him snap back round so fast he nearly gave himself a whiplash injury. "Hey, Spike... get any interesting mail lately?"

A sense of surrealism settled in around Spike. "Who the bloody hell are you?"

"Your new best friend."


	4. Surreal

**A/N: **Hello all, sorry it took me so long to update. I've been going through a rough patch in my personal life. Um, this chapter is a little special. As good as all the dialogue comes from the Angel episode "Soul Purpose," so if you want to complement me on any of that stuff well...  
It feels a little like cheating, but I have to do this for a couple of chapters and believe me, it's no picnic for me either. Hope you'll find it an enjoyable read anyway. A MASSIVE cred to the Buffyverse Dialogue Database (I'd link if I could) without whom I would be totally lost, because I most definitively do not know the entire dialogoue of "Soul Purpose" by heart. Whoever went through the work to write it down is my hero!

**Chapter three**

**Surreal **

Angel was fighting Spike for the Cup of Perpetual Torment, and he was losing, pinned down as he was to the floor by a stake through his shoulder. The pain was nothing, just something to push aside until he had time for it.

"Spike... Spike, wait. That's not a prize you're holding. It's not a trophy. It's a burden. It's a cr…"

Spike cut him short, a self-satisfied sneer on his face. "Blah, blah, blah. Give it a rest, hero. I win, you lose, and all your talking's not gonna change that."

"It's not your destiny. It's mine." Even as he said it, doubt churned in the pit of Angel's stomach, and he could se in Spike's sparkling blue eyes that the other vampire knew that.

"Still can't accept it? It's pathetic, really. All your life's been a lie. Everything you've done - the lives you've saved, dreams of redemption - all that pain... all of it for nothing. 'Cause this... was never about you. Cheers."

"No!" The cry ripped out of Angel's throat at the same time that Spike brought the cup to his lips and drank, and he watched in horrified fascination as a golden glow started to envelop the blonde. There was somewhere deep inside him a sense of relief, a freakish glee over the fact that it hadn't been him after all. Everything the powers had done to him had been an utter waste of everyone's time, because it had all been about Spike.

Before the pain set in a fleeting thought – _he's so beautiful – _passed through Angel and he had the briefest of moments to wonder at how true it was. Then there was nothing but the fire that consumed him from within. He was being burned, incinerated, extinguished and he screamed as he was turned to ashes…

Angel jerked awake. He was sitting by his desk and through the large windows of his office he could see the night lights of L.A winking flirtatiously towards the stars, who was trying to hide their interest by covering themselves with clouds.

He rubbed his eyes and tried to get his bearings. He must have fallen asleep after the others had left, the whole Harmony situation finally resolved, but he'd been so sure he'd gone up to his suite... He supposed that too had been part of the dreaming.

He tiredly staggered over to the elevator and got in it, leaning against the wall to fend off the dizziness that had suddenly overcome him.

* * *

"You?! You say you're responsible for me being back? You sent that package with the de-ghosting mojo?"

Spike couldn't believe it, he actually _owed _something to the faggot shaped nuisance that was making his night even more of a downer. Eyes as blue as his own twinkled with infuriating insolence as the kid took a sip of his drink.  
"And what if it was?"  
Spike shook his head, still not quite willing to believe it. "The amulet. You mailed that thing to Wolfram & Hart?" _And what will you want me to do as repayment you obnoxious little sausage jockey?_

The stranger shrugged, still with that disturbing little smile firmly in place. "Hey, couldn't leave your spirit trapped in a bauble at the bottom of a hellmouth, could we?"  
Spike threw the man a look that was a lot more worried than he'd wanted to show. "And who's we?"  
"Come on, Spike. You must know there's a lot of folks out there that are interested in you. Powerfully interested, one might say..."

_Alright, that does it._ Spike grabbed the man's wrist, causing him to drop his drink. The glass shattered with a sharp sound clearly audible over the insistent thumpa-thumpa of the music that was still pumping out of low quality loudspeakers all around them. "Enough with the cryptic, butch. I want to know who - or what - you are, what you want and how fast I can snap your forearm before you answer."

Finally the smile was off the little bugger's face, though the look of 'I know something you don't' that had replaced it wasn't much of an improvement. **"**You can call me Doyle. But this is not about what I want... it's about what you want. You got your life back now. What are you gonna do about it?"

"Nothing that's any of your bloody business," Spiked snarled. He'd had had enough, and once more he turned around to leave the club. Doyle followed him, and refraining to snap that oh so tempting neck got tougher and tougher by the second.

"Just think about it, Spike. Why did you come back to L.A? You hate this city! There's gotta be a reason, right?"

Spike knew his reasons, but he didn't much care for sharing them with Doyle. He didn't much care for sharing them with anyone, to be perfectly honest. He would prefer it if he didn't have to think about them too much himself either, so this was just yet another reason to be really pissed at the young man that persisted to follow him as he exited the club and went around the corner out on a seedy back street devoid of people. Excellent.

"Look, pal, I've had it up to here," Spike indicated a point just below his chin, "with your yammering. Giving me my body back was right nice of you and whoever helped out is a real chum as well, but you're making it real hard for me to enjoy not being a ghost anymore, so could you just sod off and leave me alone?"

Doyle shook his head. "Can't do that."

Spike balled his hands into tight, white knuckled fists. "And why not?"

"You've got a destiny..."

That word, _destiny_, finally made Spike snap. He slammed Doyle up against the nearest wall, his face just a few angry inches away from the other man's. "Like the destiny that was supposed to be at the bottom of a cup of perpetual nothing?"

"What?" Doyle looked honestly confused, but Spike wasn't feeling too trusting, and it had felt so good to give in to his violent impulses that he slammed the other man into the wall again for good measure. The groan of pain that escaped Doyle was music to the vampire's ears.

"Know so much about me, you must know I get really violent when I'm being played. It was you who sent Angel and me on that wild goose chase." Blue gazes met and clashed. Spike couldn't smell any fear on Doyle at all, though the man sure looked terrified. Obviously the guy was hiding something, but what?

"I don't know anything! I'm just doing what they tell me."

"They?"

Doyle pointed towards the sky. "They!" Then he turned the finger, almost accusingly, downwards. "Them! Bringing you back…" The man seemed to search for words, but Spike was pretty sure it was an act. "Look, I'm just a guy. I'm nobody. A drifter. I was minding my own business, and then one day, wham! I start having these visions."

Spike's eyes narrowed and he let go of Doyle, backing a couple of steps away. "Visions?"

The man nodded eagerly. "Yeah, like brain pictures, but they hurt. Like when you eat ice cream too fast. You start seeing people in trouble. People who need a champion."

Spike snorted. "Hey, you are barking up the wrong vampire. That's Angel's beat."

Doyle shook his head, face severe. "Angel's not in the picture anymore. All right? He's working the other side of the tracks. Nobody is out there helping the people that really need help."

Spike couldn't really believe that the man was actually serious, but for the first time all his senses were in perfect agreement of what message Doyle's body was conveying. He really meant what he was saying. "What, so I'm supposed to jump every time you get a vision of someone in dire peril?"

The youngster shrugged, clearly meaning that that issue was most definitively Spike's problem. "Why do you think we're having this conversation? I had one right before I came here. You don't have to believe me, but if a young girl gets murdered tonight and you didn't lift a finger to stop it, ask yourself... can you live with that?"

Of course he couldn't.

* * *

Angel stepped out of the elevator, swaying as he went.

"Angel..."

He turned around to see Wes behind him, and though some part of his mind knew he should be surprised to find the Brit in his apartment it just felt so perfectly obvious and natural that his friend would be where he was.  
"Hey, Wes."

He felt his knees buckling, and then Wesley was there, holding him up with arms that were stronger than Angel had expected.

"You're barely on your feet. Here."

Even with all the things he knew about Wes, all the things the man was capable of, it still didn't look to Angel like the man had it in him to harm a fly, or carry most of the weight of a well-muscled, centuries old master vampire.

That was, however, just what the Englishman did, and Angel gratefully accepted his help getting to his bed and sitting down on it. "I, uh, I think... I think I'm sick," he said with a groan.

"Vampires don't get sick," Wesley objected, and Angel couldn't deny the truth of his words. Still…

"I don't feel right."

His friend nodded knowingly. "Well, that's understandable. You've got a lot on your mind. Must be hard adjusting to the new situation."

"Situation?" Angel didn't want to ask, didn't want to know, and as Wesley opened his mouth to answer cold terror filled the vampire like he'd sucked it from his friend's neck.

"Finally coming to grips with the truth... that you're irrelevant."

So it was true. He really was of no consequence. Still, he couldn't believe his friend had just come out and said it like that. "What?"

"It's difficult to face, I know. But things could've been much worse. Spike's arrival's actually quite fortuitous." Suddenly there was a stake in Wesley's hand. "It'll make this a lot easier."

"What are you…" the words turned into a scream as the wood got punched through him, and when Angel woke up, he was still screaming.

* * *

"Evening."

The vampire turned towards Spike, still pinning his victim to the wet-looking wall of one of the crummy apartment buildings boxing in the back alley Doyle had given directions to.  
"Get lost!"

Spike grinned wickedly. "Already am, according to some"

The would be vampire meal, a young girl, seemed to think that Spike was perhaps focusing on the wrong things. "Help me!"

Spike sighed and gave her his patented 'Are you a Moron?' look. "You know, I _was _getting there. No need to rush it, luv."

She looked appalled and terrified at the same time, much like her attacker was looking confused and angry. "I don't think you heard me. Get out of here."

Spike shook his head. "Can't do it."

"You just made the biggest mistake of your life," the vampire said before launching himself at Spike, and it took about three seconds to drive a stake through the brainless cretin's heart. The no-longer-even-close-to-becoming-a-vampire-snack looked at the cloud of dust her assailant had been reduced to and then turned to Spike with her eyes a-sparkle. "Thank you! Thank you! That thing was gonna kill me!"

Spike felt a sudden surge of rage burning deep down in his insides like acid, dissolving his internal organs until all that was left of him was the anger. It wasn't the girl's fault, and though he couldn't (or wouldn't) pinpoint exactly what he was so angry about it sure as hell didn't have anything to do with her. But on the other hand she was there, and Ang... whatever had pissed him off, wasn't.

"Well, what do you expect? Out alone in this neighbourhood? I got half a mind to kill you myself, you half-wit!"

The gratitude melted from the girls face and was replaced by an expression of outrage and hurt. "What?!"

Spike knew that he should stop, but now the anger was pumping through his system as if his heart had suddenly decided to start functioning again and it just felt so _good _to let it all (more like a tiny fraction, really, but it would have to suffice) out. "I mean, honestly, what kind of retard wears heels like that in a dark alley? Take two steps, break your bloody ankle."

Tears started to fill the girl's eyes.

_Yes, luv, men are swine. Even the knights in shining armour._

"I was just trying to get home."

"Well, get a cab, you moron!" Spike shouted at her, and she turned on her heels and stamped off.

Spike was frustrated to see her go. Part of him wanted her to stay so that he could give her a better impression of him, but the other part, the larger one, just wanted to keep insulting her.

"And on the way, if a stranger offers you candy, don't get in the van!" he called to her distant figure to at least get one final punch in. "Stupid cow," he then muttered to himself and turned around to find Doyle standing a few feet behind him. He wanted to know how the hell the man's arriving had escaped his notice, but decided that he didn't want it enough to actually ask. Something about the guy creeped him out, and until he knew why he felt better putting on an air of 'nothing you do can surprise me,' though it was pretty obvious that Doyle wasn't buying it.

"Believe me now?" The man said with a good-natured version of the 'I told you so'-face. It pissed Spike off, like everything else about that bloody cowboytoy.

"What, your victim vision? Please. Can't throw a bloody stone in this town without hitting some bimbo in trouble."

His attitude had no effect whatsoever on Doyle, who just smiled a little wider and crossed his arms over his chest. "Tough guy, huh?" He said, seemingly unimpressed, but then he continued with what sounded like genuine appreciation in his voice. "Nice work, by the way, takin' out that vamp."

_He's got to be kidding me. _"Oh, yeah. Epic battle. My finest hour."

Now Doyle seemed a little annoyed "You just saved a girl's life! It's nothing to laugh off." Though you could try being a little nicer next time. You almost made her cry."

Spike tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at the man he'd placed somewhere to the south on his mental map. Texas, maybe. "Next time? And of course that's your decision to make."

Doyle shrugged. "Well, no, that's up to you. A lot more people need saving, though."

Spike let out a short, harsh bark of a laugh and started walking away. "News flash, sparky: Don't need your help. Been saving people long before you showed up."

The other man followed , shaking his head insistently. "Not like this. You just helped a person when there wasn't anything in it for you. That's not like the Spike I know."

Spike stopped abruptly and turned to face Doyle. "Oh, is that right? And what Spike is that?"

The reply came swiftly and undaunted. "The Spike that's only out for himself. The one who does good deeds to impress..." A small smile graced the man's lips "…women."

Spike wasn't used to people treating him like this, like he didn't affect them at all. People were _always_ affected by him. If they didn't fear him, they wanted him. This guy was trating him jus like… He broke off in mid thought, and threw his irritation on Doyle instead. "You'd best watch your…"

He was interrupted. "I'm just sayin'. You did good." Doyle's eyes turned sly. "From what I hear Angel didn't save the girl on his first mission."

The mentioning of Angel's name sent jolts through Spike. Though the man had never been far from his thoughts all night, it still felt strange when he was brought into the conversation. "What's Angel got to do with this?"

Doyle smiled, and in that smile there was a strange kind of satisfaction. Spike found that not only did he not trust Doyle, he also feared him a little, and the man's words sent chills down his spine. "Well... nothin'. Not anymore."

* * *

**A/N:** I know, I know, cliffhanger again, and I'm sorry! But the next chapter will come much sooner.

* * *


	5. Stirring

**A/N: **A very short little chapter, but at least it's a chapter, eh? Oh, and again a huge kudos to the people over at the Buffyverse Dialogue Database, since most of the dialogue here still is from their transcription of the Angel episode "Soul Purpose" I'd like to say again that I'm sorry, and I hope I can keep your interest up. I'm trying to throw in enough twists to keep it interesting.

**

* * *

**

**Chapter four**

**Stirring**

"Angel, You look terrible."

Fred was in his room, and there was nothing odd about that.

"Fred, I think something's wrong," he said with distress painted in thick layers all over his features.

Fred nodded reassuringly and put a slender hand on his arm. "Okay. Don't worry, I know what to do," she said before turning away from him. It was only for the briefest of moments, but still when she turned back, snapping a surgical glove in place on her hand, the scenery had changed. Angel found himself lying, somehow still in his own bed, in Fred's laboratory.

"Let's take a look under the hood," she said, more curious than concerned and producing a scalpel from somewhere outside Angel's line of sight.

"What? Fred? What are you doing?"

"It's okay," she reassured him, but he didn't believe her. Fear made it feel like something was crawling under his skin, and he wanted desperately to escape, but his muscles wouldn't obey him.

"Please...ah!" Angel's plea turned into a cry of pain as Fred unceremoniously bent down and cut his chest open.

"There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" she said with a sweet little smile.

"Please, stop," Angel groaned, but Fred wouldn't listen. "Okay, let's get these out of the way," she chirped and reached inside him to pull out what must be his internal organs, only they didn't look like they'd ever been inside a real person. They looked like really, really bad movie props.

"There's your liver," she said, holding one of the pieces of moulded plastic up before carelessly tossing it aside. "Oh, and there's your kidneys," she continued, and when she saw the distressed look on Angel's face she added, "Don't worry, you're a vampire. You don't need this stuff anyway. Probably should've had it removed a long time ago."

She kept poking around, sending tendons of pain all through Angel's body, and suddenly her face was lit up by a delightful smile. "Ah, there's your heart! Hey, what do you know? It is a dried-up little walnut."

Angel watched as she threw the nut into a bucket, and he wondered why he didn't feel the loss of it more. Sure, technically he didn't _need _it, but shouldn't he still feel that it was gone?

None of this seemed to be bothering Fred, who was still cheerfully poking around in his chest cavity. "So far so good. Let's see... Oh, hang on…" She hauled out a half-filled fish bowl, and Angel found that through the haze of confusion, pain and good old fashioned fear, he could still wonder how it had managed to fit in there.

There was a fish in the bowl, but it was floating belly up, clearly dead. Or, that's what he thought until he took a closer look, just to have anything but the pain to focus on. The fish wasn't dead, because it had never been alive. It was a plastic toy.

"There's your soul!" Fred exclaimed happily and then handed the bowl over to a person in a bear suit that was unexpectedly standing behind her. "Thank you, Bear."

She turned back to Angel and peered inside him. "Huh!"

"Fred, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. I can't seem to find anything wrong with you. I mean... ...except that you're empty. There's nothing left. Just a shell." She put an ear to his chest. "I think I can hear the ocean in there." With the simple joy of a child playing on the beach she called into the empty hollow where so many things should have been, listening for an echo. "Hello? Hello!"

Angel's world was going a little foggy around the edges, and he could feel unconsciousness tugging at his mind, but just before that he could see that Fred spotted something else inside him. "Oh, what's this then?"

She pulled out what looked like a framed picture. "What's this doing here?"

It was a picture of Spike, in a beautiful silver frame wrought with delicate shapes of leaves and flowers. Yes, what _was _it doing there?

Angel opened and closed his mouth like a fish on land, the pain all but forgotten and the world so much in focus that it almost hurt. The picture burned his eyes, scorched his very core.

"Well," Fred said, "Whatever the reason might be, it seems to be the only real thing in there."

As the darkness overtook him, the last thing he saw was the picture of Spike, smiling mischievously at him.

_The only real thing…_


	6. Awake

**A/N: **And now my friends, we are at the end of the episode "Soul Purpose" which hopefully means I will no longer have to use so much original dialogue from the series in the following chapters. Thank you all for bearing with me, I hope the payoff I give you in this chapter is enough compensaion. Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter five**

**Awake**

It wasn't much of a fight the second time Doyle sent Spike off on a rescue mission either. Two vampires this time, but they were still dispatched of within minutes.

The two intended victims, a man and a woman, were crouching behind a car, and he turned toward them trying to be reassuring. "It's all right. You're safe now."

He knew he sounded too dry and ironic. Angel would probably have managed it with the proper amount of calm and authority. But Angel wasn't in the picture anymore, he reminded himself angrily. _Stop thinking about him you bloody idiot._

"What were those things?" The man was slowly coming out from behind the car, the woman behind him.

"You're better off not knowing, believe me," he said as he started to leave. Still not kindly enough, but it was the truth. What else could he offer people than that?

"Wait. Who are you?" the woman said, and Spike stopped. What to say?

"I'm the hero."

* * *

The darkness lifted from Angel's eyes. He was in still in his bed, but now he was in his own room again. He felt feverish, but relief was rolling over him in great waves. Finally the nightmare was over. Then he turned, and realised that no, no it wasn't. Beside him, a couple was making passionate love. It was Spike and Buffy.

Angel had to stop them; he had to get Buffy off Spike! No, that was wrong; he had to get _Spike_ off _Buffy_.

However, as soon as he made a motion towards them he was overcome with nauseating dizziness, and as he fell back towards the mattress his eyes yet again clouded over and all was black.

**"**You gotta invite me in," Spike said as he stood in the doorway of an extremely utilitarian apartment that Doyle had insisted on taking him to without saying why, despite a number of threats to his life, limbs and manhood. It consisted of two rooms, sort of, but there was only a big wide opening dividing the spaces that could only be described as "sleeping area" and "everything else area."

Doyle turned from his spot in the middle of the living room/kitchen. "It's not my place, it's yours. Building's quiet, windows don't get direct sunlight and you've got a sewer entrance for your daytime travel."

Spike tried to hide his surprise as he entered the room by raising an eyebrow and trying for some sarcasm. "What, no cable?"

Doyle smiled, seemingly unperturbed. "You got water, electricity, heating, all the basics. Even got a Korean market on the corner that's open all night."

Spike wasn't feeling all that comfortable with the situation. He still didn't trust Doyle, there was definitively something fishy about the guy, though admittedly anyone would get a little weird having the Powers that Be planting images in your head at regular intervals. "Look… I appreciate what you've done for me, making me corporeal and all, but I draw the line at being your kept boy."

Doyle didn't even try to hide his scepticism. "Oh. You got someplace else to live? I mean, a man of your means must have money tucked away somewhere, you'll find something soon. I'm offering you a place to hang your hat," he eyed spike, reassessing his statement with a small smile, "Or...your coat. You could say thank you."

No way was Spike going to thank this little brat, but he still wasn't sure what to say or do, so he stayed within his comfort zone. Snark. "Great, another ruddy basement."

**"**You want creature comforts? You can go to Wolfram & Hart. This place has everything you need to be a hero. The job requires somewhat of a... Spartan existence."

Spike desperately wanted to say something scalding in response, but found that he was stumped for anything good. "You call that a bed?" He whined instead, gesturing towards the creaky-looking single bed he'd been given.

Doyle shrugged "Well, it's not like you're gonna be sharing it with anyone any time soon," he said, and Spike wished himself back to the good old days when he could snap peoples' necks off when he couldn't think of a snappy comeback.

**

* * *

**

Angel couldn't believe it. Spike had saved the world, and he had been turned into a human. Fred, Gunn, Wesley, everyone was clustering around him to listen to the new heartbeat. Angel found that he himself had to fight back a sudden urge to rush forward and rest his cheek against Spike's chest. Instead he turned and walked away, alone and forgotten.

* * *

The knock on the door was loud and insistent, and since no on else knew where he lived Spike assumed it was Doyle with yet another rescue mission. When he saw who it really was he almost started laughing. Wesley and Gunn, all suited up and corporate and looking a bit like mob goons. "Well, look who's come to call, Crockett and Tubbs. Come on in, boys, out of the cold into the damp. Suppose I should have expected a visit from Big Brother's L.A. Branch sooner or later. Can I get you a frosty?" He said as he let them in and wandered off to the fridge to get himself a beer.

"What are you up to, Spike?" Gunn said.

"Man gets right to the meat of the existential nut, doesn't he?" Spike answered as he opened his bottle.

"We're just a little concerned. You don't call, you don't write. What's your angle? Last time we saw you, you were booking a one-way to the continent."

Spike shrugged and sat down on one of the four chairs surrounding his butt-ugly dinner table. "Change of plans, change of heart. Changed me mind, mates."

Wesley decided to join the conversation. "Sounds like you've been busy. We're getting reports of a vigilante who matches your description."

Spike snorted. "Yes...that's what you people do, isn't it? You get reports, and you sign checks. You read memos." He saluted them with his beer. "Here's to the corporate teat." He took a swig before asking, "How'd you find me?

"Wasn't too hard," Gunn said, "we put a couple of our psychics on it this afternoon."

"One of the advantages of the corporate teat," Wesley added.

"So, what can I do for you? Need me to help you collate something?" Spike said, suddenly eager to get to the point. All this talk of the corporate teat made him think about Angel again, something he'd worked very hard not to do and managed successfully for… almost an hour now.

"From what we hear... you're fighting the good fight these days," Wesley said, and Spike gave him a look of slight puzzlement, not sure what the man was getting at.

"We figure that's our territory," Gunn clarified.

Spike couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Is that what this is about? You're hurt 'cause I stepped on your toesies?

Gunn shook his head. "Not at all. We're wondering why you left in the first place."

Wesley nodded in agreement. "If you want to save the world, we've got the resources to help you do it."

Spike was startled; something really odd was going on. Hadn't he been thrown out of Wolfram and Hart by Angel himself? The one supposedly in charge of the people now asking him to come back? Well, it didn't matter; he had no intentions of accepting their offer. "No offense, Mr. Vader, but I've got no itch to join the evil empire."

"It's different, you know it. We've changed things," Gunn said, and Spike couldn't believe how naïve he was.

"Look...I told Angel, and I'll tell you. A place like that doesn't change. Not from the inside, not from the out. You sign on there, it changes you. Puts things in your head. Spins your compass needle around till you can't cross the street without tripping the proverbial old lady and stepping on her glasses. And it's not like I wasn't there, gents, like I wasn't watching you. Had to haunt the damn place, remember?"

"Things aren't that cut-and-dried, Spike," Gunn insisted. "We're making a difference. We're just... playing by a new set of rules."

Spike was getting annoyed. "So what? You want me to... put on a suit and come play with you?"

"Something like that," Wesley acceded.

No, this wasn't right. The whole situation just didn't _work. _Spike frowned slightly as he spoke. "I can't believe Angel would sign off on that. Unless..." Everything fell into place. Of course Angel hadn't sent them there. He felt a strange sensation in his chest, like someone was squeezing what was left of his long-dead heart with their fist. It hurt a little, but he put on a sardonic smile, looking like he was pleased to have caught them at it. "He doesn't know you're here, does he? Hedging our bets, are we, boys?"

"That's not how it is," Gunn protested.

Spike shook his head. "And the compass needle keeps spinning. And the world gets murkier and murkier."

* * *

Another awakening. This time there was music. Angel looked around to find that he was in his bed, in his own room, but there was a piano beside it and sitting by it was… "Lorne?"

The demon looked like he belonged more in a saloon in a western movie. His hair was slicked back and he even had a moustache. The brown vest and white shirt was something Angel would have thought his friend would refuse to wear, but he looked rather comfortable in it.

"Oh, round these parts, folks call me Honky-Tonk," Lorne said, inexplicably in a southern accent, and spat loudly into a brass spittoon that stood right beside him. "Hey, why so down in the dumpster, partner? You look like you just had to put down your last puppy."

"I think... I think I'm lost," Angel said. "Everything hurts."

Lorne nodded. "Now you're gettin' it. Everything hurts, and then we die. Or in your case, everything hurts and then you go on, and on, and on, and on…"

Lorne's words echoed strangely in his head as Angel looked down on himself, and doing so he noticed something that hadn't been there before. Some kind of… bluish creature, as big as his fist, was stuck to his chest. He grabbed it and pulled it loose, and as he did so he was jerked truly awake in a blinding flash of light. He was still holding the creature, so he squeezed it to death.

"Wow, you killed junior."

* * *

Spike had gone out to buy more beer after Wesley and Gunn had left, anticipating a long night of drinking to get rid of the bad taste the whole incident had left in his mouth, so when he returned home to find Doyle lounging on his sofa ha wasn't particularly pleased.

**"**See you found the market."

"Thought this was a single. Didn't know I was gonna have a bloody roommate," Spike said as he put the new six-pack on the dinner table.

"Just checkin' in. Keeping tabs," Doyle answered with a friendly if slightly condescending smile as he got out of the sofa to go grab himself a beer. "It's kinda what I do," he said before raising the bottle to his lips.

Spike grabbed it before it reached its destination. "Yeah, well, I don't need a baby-sitter, so, um, bugger off," he said and took a swig out of the bottle himself instead.

"You this prickly with all your friends?" Doyle asked, seemingly without sarcasm.

"I'm soft on the inside," Spike answered, _with _sarcasm.

"Spike... things would…" Doyle started but interrupted himself, looking like something was bothering him. "Things would go a lot smoother if you…" He tried again, but this time the interruption was even more abrupt as he doubled over, grasping his head and groaning in pain. It only lasted for a few seconds, and the Texan soon straightened with a look of urgency in his eyes.

Spike sensed that his night was about to get even more ruined. "Oh, bloody hell. What was that about?"

"I just had another vision."

Just as suspected. "Oh, great. Look, don't expect me to jump every time you've got one of these vision thingies."

"Oh, no, I think you're gonna want to jump on this one."

* * *

"Eve?"

Angel knew that he was awake, for real, so what was Eve doing in his room? And what was in the large box she was holding?

"I'm not here, Angel. You're dreaming. But don't worry, the dream's almost over."

She opened the box, and out of it came another bluish creature just like the one that had been on the bed, only much bigger. It flopped down on the bed, and as it started crawling towards Angel, Eve gave Angel a little smile over her shoulder before gracefully leaving the room.

"No!" Angel cried and smacked the creature away. He tried to get out of his bed but he just ended up falling out of it. His body wasn't obeying. The phone, he had to get to the phone, had to call for help. He started crawling, but it was no use, he wasn't getting anywhere fast enough, and now he could feel the creature on his leg, but he kept trying, right until the moment the creature's fangs sunk into his chest and he was swirling back into oblivion.

An armchair, in the middle of a beautiful meadow. And sun, blessed sun soaking his old, tired bones in warmth and light. It was heavenly.

"It's nice here, isn't it?"

It was Spike. Spike was there with him, walking towards him, glorious in the sunlight. Angel realised he'd never seen Spike in the sun before. He was beautiful.

The thoughts came with no shame, denial or anger, just calm acceptance. Angel got out of the chair and went to meet Spike. Like it was the most natural thing in the world he cupped the other vampire's face in his hands. It felt warm and alive. Human. "Can we stay here forever?"

"If you want to."

It wasn't real. It wasn't Spike, and Angel knew that. Spike would never let him this close, and Angel had never realised he wanted to _be _this close, but now that he was he didn't want to go back to the real world. To the distance. He bent down and kissed Spike like it was his first and last kiss ever, at last acknowledging what he had refused to let himself know. _I'm in love with you. _That was the truth. He didn't know when it had happened, how or why, but somewhere along the line he had fallen in love with Spike. Spike that was kissing him back like he had never been kissed before in his entire existence as they sank down on the grass…

And then it was gone. The kiss, the light, everything. Angel was back in his room… Spike was still with him, how? The blond vampire was smashing the creature against the wall, killing it instantly and leaving a massive stain.

"That'll be a bitch of a clean-up."

"Spike?" Was it really him? Was it _real_?

"No need to thank me. Just helping the helpless."

And he walked away, without a look back. Angel tried to call him, tried to tell him, because what mattered right now was that Spike needed to _know_, and to hell with the consequences! But Angel couldn't make another sound, and Spike was gone.


End file.
